By and by, after a rugged climb, we halted on the summit of a hill which
commanded a far-reaching view. The moon rose and flooded mountain and
valley and ocean with a mellow radiance, and out of the shadows of the
foliage the distant lights of Honolulu glinted like an encampment of
fireflies. The air was heavy with the fragrance of flowers. The halt
was brief.--Gayly laughing and talking, the party galloped on, and I
clung to the pommel and cantered after. Presently we came to a place
where no grass grew--a wide expanse of deep sand. They said it was an
old battle ground. All around everywhere, not three feet apart, the
bleached bones of men gleamed white in the moonlight. We picked up a lot
of them for mementoes. I got quite a number of arm bones and leg bones
--of great chiefs, may be, who had fought savagely in that fearful battle
in the old days, when blood flowed like wine where we now stood--and wore
the choicest of them out on Oahu afterward, trying to make him go. All
sorts of bones could be found except skulls; but a citizen said,
irreverently, that there had been an unusual number of "skull-hunters"
there lately--a species of sportsmen I had never heard of before.
Nothing whatever is known about this place--its story is a secret that
will never be revealed. The oldest natives make no pretense of being
possessed of its history. They say these bones were here when they were
children. They were here when their grandfathers were children--but how
they came here, they can only conjecture. Many people believe this spot
to be an ancient battle-ground, and it is usual to call it so; and they
believe that these skeletons have lain for ages just where their
proprietors fell in the great fight. Other people believe that
Kamehameha I. fought his first battle here. On this point, I have heard
a story, which may have been taken from one of the numerous books which
have been written concerning these islands--I do not know where the
narrator got it. He said that when Kamehameha (who was at first merely a
subordinate chief on the island of Hawaii), landed here, he brought a
large army with him, and encamped at Waikiki. The Oahuans marched
against him, and so confident were they of success that they readily
acceded to a demand of their priests that they should draw a line where
these bones now lie, and take an oath that, if forced to retreat at all,
they would never retreat beyond this boundary. The priests told them
that death and everlasting punishment would overtake any who violated the
oath, and the march was resumed. Kamehameha drove them back step by
step; the priests fought in the front rank and exhorted them both by
voice and inspiriting example to remember their oath--to die, if need be,
but never cross the fatal line. The struggle was manfully maintained,
but at last the chief priest fell, pierced to the heart with a spear, and
the unlucky omen fell like a blight upon the brave souls at his back;
with a triumphant shout the invaders pressed forward--the line was
crossed--the offended gods deserted the despairing army, and, accepting
the doom their perjury had brought upon them, they broke and fled over
the plain where Honolulu stands now--up the beautiful Nuuanu Valley
--paused a moment, hemmed in by precipitous mountains on either hand and
the frightful precipice of the Pari in front, and then were driven over
--a sheer plunge of six hundred feet!
The story is pretty enough, but Mr. Jarves' excellent history says the
Oahuans were intrenched in Nuuanu Valley; that Kamehameha ousted them,
routed them, pursued them up the valley and drove them over the
precipice. He makes no mention of our bone-yard at all in his book.
Impressed by the profound silence and repose that rested over the
beautiful landscape, and being, as usual, in the rear, I gave voice to my
thoughts. I said:
"What a picture is here slumbering in the solemn glory of the moon! How
strong the rugged outlines of the dead volcano stand out against the
clear sky! What a snowy fringe marks the bursting of the surf over the
long, curved reef! How calmly the dim city sleeps yonder in the plain!
How soft the shadows lie upon the stately mountains that border the
dream-haunted Mauoa Valley! What a grand pyramid of billowy clouds
towers above the storied Pari! How the grim warriors of the past seem
flocking in ghostly squadrons to their ancient battlefield again--how the
wails of the dying well up from the--"
At this point the horse called Oahu sat down in the sand. Sat down to
listen, I suppose. Never mind what he heard, I stopped apostrophising
and convinced him that I was not a man to allow contempt of Court on the
part of a horse. I broke the back-bone of a Chief over his rump and set
out to join the cavalcade again.
Very considerably fagged out we arrived in town at 9 o'clock at night,
myself in the lead--for when my horse finally came to understand that he
was homeward bound and hadn't far to go, he turned his attention strictly
to business.
This is a good time to drop in a paragraph of information. There is no
regular livery stable in Honolulu, or, indeed, in any part of the Kingdom
of Hawaii; therefore unless you are acquainted with wealthy residents
(who all have good horses), you must hire animals of the wretchedest
description from the Kanakas. (i.e. natives.) Any horse you hire, even
though it be from a white man, is not often of much account, because it
will be brought in for you from some ranch, and has necessarily been
leading a hard life. If the Kanakas who have been caring for him
(inveterate riders they are) have not ridden him half to death every day
themselves, you can depend upon it they have been doing the same thing by
proxy, by clandestinely hiring him out. At least, so I am informed. The
result is, that no horse has a chance to eat, drink, rest, recuperate, or
look well or feel well, and so strangers go about the Islands mounted as
I was to-day.
In hiring a horse from a Kanaka, you must have all your eyes about you,
because you can rest satisfied that you are dealing with a shrewd
unprincipled rascal. You may leave your door open and your trunk
unlocked as long as you please, and he will not meddle with your
property; he has no important vices and no inclination to commit robbery
on a large scale; but if he can get ahead of you in the horse business,
he will take a genuine delight in doing it. This traits is
characteristic of horse jockeys, the world over, is it not? He will
overcharge you if he can; he will hire you a fine-looking horse at night
(anybody's--may be the King's, if the royal steed be in convenient view),
and bring you the mate to my Oahu in the morning, and contend that it is
the same animal. If you make trouble, he will get out by saying it was
not himself who made the bargain with you, but his brother, "who went out
in the country this morning." They have always got a "brother" to shift
the responsibility upon. A victim said to one of these fellows one day:
"But I know I hired the horse of you, because I noticed that scar on your
cheek."
The reply was not bad: "Oh, yes--yes--my brother all same--we twins!"
A friend of mine, J. Smith, hired a horse yesterday, the Kanaka
warranting him to be in excellent condition.
Smith had a saddle and blanket of his own, and he ordered the Kanaka to
put these on the horse. The Kanaka protested that he was perfectly
willing to trust the gentleman with the saddle that was already on the
animal, but Smith refused to use it. The change was made; then Smith
noticed that the Kanaka had only changed the saddles, and had left the
original blanket on the horse; he said he forgot to change the blankets,
and so, to cut the bother short, Smith mounted and rode away. The horse
went lame a mile from town, and afterward got to cutting up some
extraordinary capers. Smith got down and took off the saddle, but the
blanket stuck fast to the horse--glued to a procession of raw places.
The Kanaka's mysterious conduct stood explained.
Another friend of mine bought a pretty good horse from a native, a day or
two ago, after a tolerably thorough examination of the animal. He
discovered today that the horse was as blind as a bat, in one eye. He
meant to have examined that eye, and came home with a general notion that
he had done it; but he remembers now that every time he made the attempt
his attention was called to something else by his victimizer.
One more instance, and then I will pass to something else. I am informed
that when a certain Mr. L., a visiting stranger, was here, he bought a
pair of very respectable-looking match horses from a native. They were
in a little stable with a partition through the middle of it--one horse
in each apartment. Mr. L. examined one of them critically through a
window (the Kanaka's "brother" having gone to the country with the key),
and then went around the house and examined the other through a window on
the other side. He said it was the neatest match he had ever seen, and
paid for the horses on the spot. Whereupon the Kanaka departed to join
his brother in the country. The fellow had shamefully swindled L. There
was only one "match" horse, and he had examined his starboard side
through one window and his port side through another! I decline to
believe this story, but I give it because it is worth something as a
fanciful illustration of a fixed fact--namely, that the Kanaka
horse-jockey is fertile in invention and elastic in conscience.
You can buy a pretty good horse for forty or fifty dollars, and a good
enough horse for all practical purposes for two dollars and a half. I
estimate "Oahu" to be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-five
cents. A good deal better animal than he is was sold here day before
yesterday for a dollar and seventy-five cents, and sold again to-day for
two dollars and twenty-five cents; Williams bought a handsome and lively
little pony yesterday for ten dollars; and about the best common horse on
the island (and he is a really good one) sold yesterday, with Mexican
saddle and bridle, for seventy dollars--a horse which is well and widely
known, and greatly respected for his speed, good disposition and
everlasting bottom.
You give your horse a little grain once a day; it comes from San
Francisco, and is worth about two cents a pound; and you give him as much
hay as he wants; it is cut and brought to the market by natives, and is
not very good it is baled into long, round bundles, about the size of a
large man; one of them is stuck by the middle on each end of a six foot
pole, and the Kanaka shoulders the pole and walks about the streets
between the upright bales in search of customers. These hay bales, thus
carried, have a general resemblance to a colossal capital 'H.'
The hay-bundles cost twenty-five cents apiece, and one will last a horse
about a day. You can get a horse for a song, a week's hay for another
song, and you can turn your animal loose among the luxuriant grass in
your neighbor's broad front yard without a song at all--you do it at
midnight, and stable the beast again before morning. You have been at no
expense thus far, but when you come to buy a saddle and bridle they will
cost you from twenty to thirty-five dollars. You can hire a horse,
saddle and bridle at from seven to ten dollars a week, and the owner will
take care of them at his own expense.
It is time to close this day's record--bed time. As I prepare for sleep,
a rich voice rises out of the still night, and, far as this ocean rock is
toward the ends of the earth, I recognize a familiar home air. But the
words seem somewhat out of joint:
"Waikiki lantoni oe Kaa hooly hooly wawhoo."
Translated, that means "When we were marching through Georgia."